I have been keeping up to date on the changes that Blizzard will be making to priests in the next patch in preparation for Cataclysm. Unfortunately, I do not have time to play on the PTR. I was wondering if anyone knows how holy priests healing mechanics will be yet. The patch should come out in the next 2 weeks or so and I fear how ICC will go when it does. I know that Mana will, yet again, be more difficult to manage like in Burning crusade, but with chakras and all the buffs you get from using smite (and other new spells and such), I am quite lost on how to heal as a Holy priest after the patch comes out.
If anyone has been on the PTR and has a clue, or even wants to theorize, feel free to answer.
Best Answer
To be honest I think it's a bit too early to say right now. On the PTR even in heroics tanks are getting beaten up pretty hard, as they scaled up monster damage output, so the numbers will probably get rebalanced a bit before the patch goes live.
The biggest thing to get your head around right now is the revamped system of every healer having the three base heals - the slow, small efficient heal, the slow large heal, and the fast inefficient heal. They apparently expect healers to use the slow small heal when there is not much else to do, and to balance the other heals with their cooldowns during heavier damage.
Also, right now I'd pay more attention to what Blizzard says about healing than what the experience is like on the PTR. Here are some recent examples:
The reason I say to watch what they say more than what they do is, they've been very clear that if the PTR behavior doesn't match what they have in mind, they'll tweak the numbers until it does. In the last PTR patch most healers just spammed their slow, efficient spell because it was getting the job done... so in the next patch Blizzard nerfed those spells, as they want them to be only a fallback and not strong enough to stand alone. That sort of thing may well happen once or twice more before the patch goes live.
Incidentally, I find that checking the top page of mmo-champion to be the easiest way to keep track of Blizzard's position on things.